


phases of the sun

by laskaris



Series: tales from the dreaming sea [2]
Category: Exalted
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, POV Second Person, Sex Work, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 00:32:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6882148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laskaris/pseuds/laskaris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five Solar Exalts, five phases of the sun.  </p><p>Iseul Lien's reflections on his Circlemates and himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	phases of the sun

I. dawn

Sarnai is luminous and fierce as the dawn, a whirl of blades and feathers, and sometimes it hurts to look at her glory, her purity of purpose that shines so bright. Six weeks in sunlight are nothing compared to a lifetime in the dark, and her straightforwardness is so different from anything you had ever known. Her strength and conviction is a blade, stronger than even the one she wields, and you only wish that you could be a fraction so strong of heart and will. 

You don’t quite know what drove her to bring her people half a world and a lifetime away from everything she’s ever known except that it has something to do with the Immaculate Order _(but it does not take much guessing, from her rage)_ ,but you know that whatever it was, it shattered lives and hearts and worlds.and transformed her, however unwillingly, into a refugee goddess-queen promising them sanctuary and safety. 

_(she asked you to teach her the ways of courts and kings, how to smooth the edges of her rough tongue: you agreed, and you are patient, you are trying, but you are certain that you are no fit teacher for her.)_

You draw back and hold to silence: she is so bright that if you get too close, you will burn. 

ii . zenith

You can’t decide if you pity, like, or resent Jayendra: you resented him before, when he was a petty princeling, wine-sotted and careless, who took for granted a father’s unconditional love. But now he is a man, growing into his power, noonday gold and confident. You don’t believe in justice as anything more than pretty words, because you have only ever seen justice done once in your life, but he almost makes you want to believe, even if only for a moment, that it could ever be real. 

_(how does a man love so much? His subjects, strangers, his friends, even his enemies. How does he hold them all in his heart?)_

He catches your eye, sometimes, with a look like he wants to talk: you deftly avoid him, bury yourself in work, because there’s nothing to talk about. A king has many concerns, especially a king whose country is in turmoil and facing war: you will be the least of his concerns, even if it means being never there to be found. 

Iii. twilight

You both like and are afraid of Shakuntala: she is kind, and motherly, and with a gentle touch, but manages to crawl under your skin, inside your shell, further than anyone has ever been. It’s unsettling, and though she manages to pry some of your secrets out of you, you close your petals tighter afterward. Your experiences are twinned, parallel, in many ways, and if you ever spoke to her about them, you know that she would understand, but you don’t talk to her about yours, though you would be happy to listen to whatever she wished to say.

 _(You survived, you survive, the only way you could: it wasn’t so bad, because there was always something worse. Shakuntala had been a slave, and you had your freedom: see, there it was, something worse.)_

Sometimes, you watch her with her little projects, the small things that she likes to build, her alchemy, and think of the discussion you had, of the better world that she would like to make. That beautiful, golden dream, possibly born from the ashes of the old, like the spirit with wings of fire you read about in your father’s books, the bird that burns itself to death only to rise, born anew. Shakuntala is gentle, so very gentle, but she is angry, and she burns so very brightly against the dark. 

Someday, she will take the world in her hands and show it mercy. 

Iv. eclipse

You’d heard of Ram, five years before you Exalted, two years before you became a courtesan: how could you not, when your father had been so angry at how many of his plans that his peace had destroyed or set back? Oath-Binder, Silver-Tongue: the epithets had flown far and fast, even in the gilded cage of your father’s house, and you wondered what kind of man had earned and worn those names. 

_(You’d thought that you never would meet him: how could you, when you would live and die within the walls of your father’s house? But you had no way of knowing how wrong you were.)_

Champoor’s quicksilver son is overwhelming and changeable, sharp-tongued and talkative: talk more, show less. Ram has so many facets, seen and unseen, and while you’re good at piecing together a person’s heart, he is contradictions and complications made flesh, nearly as good at hiding his true self as you are. You are demure and delicate, sweet in your silence: he is brilliant and bold, a thousand words that tangle and obscure. As a street child, he had to learn to assert his will lest he be crushed, while you learned different lessons growing up in your father’s house, but for all your differences, there is that similarity down deep. 

Your partnership is founded on secrets, those you keep together and apart, a mutual understanding. _But at any given moment, no matter how good we are, we can only truly know and rely on ourselves all the time:_ you’d both learned the truth of that advice the hard way, and the taste of his tea is an echo of memory on your tongue.

V. night

You are you, much as you have ever been: willow-slender and reed-yielding, hiding your thoughts beneath gentle silence and demure passivity, a soft smile that never reaches your eyes. Friendship is fragile and you don’t understand, so you draw back: instead, you’re useful, because it’s what you know how to be. 

_(You are only worthy if you are useful. A lesson cradled in your heart, nurtured through bitter years)._

Possession means either to own something or to be an object that is possessed: you are still uncertain of the first in relation to yourself and spent three years too long being the second, and though you’ve given up being a courtesan, the knowledge of your value as a commodity has never left you. Lovely and fragile, you are unseen, you are an ornament, and you know how to twist and weaponize that perception to steal secrets. 

At the heart of things, people want, and strive to fill that want. You don’t know what you want, other than to never be used again, to be your own person, but you don’t even know what _that_ means for you. You don’t consider the question but instead throw yourself into work and hold to graceful silence, to be what others need you to be, but by your own choice and will this time: you are useful and you are valued and for now, that is enough. 

_(It’s easier to stay in darkness, rather than face the sun.)_

**Author's Note:**

> \- oh, look, now the other members of the Circle actually appear in this fic. yayyy.


End file.
